Bettering our knowledge of global bee distribution

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

1:35 PM – 1:53 PM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 119/120

Presenting Author(s)

Michael C. Orr

Group Leader
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart
Bethesda, Maryland

Co-author(s)

AH

Alice C. Hughes

University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, Guangdong, China (People's Republic)
HQ

Huijie Qiao

Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, Beijing, China (People's Republic)
DC

Douglas Chesters

Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, Beijing, China (People's Republic)
JP

John Pickering

University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia

Co-Author(s)

JA

John S. Ascher

National University of Singapore
Singapore, Singapore

Co-author(s)

CZ

Chao-Dong Zhu

Professor
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, Beijing, China (People's Republic)

Claims of bee declines are common but little systematic work has been done on their distribution, to the extent that we do not solidly know the range of most species. To further explore bee distribution, we combined a uniquely-comprehensive checklist of bee species distributions and >5,800,000 public bee occurrence records. Publicly-accessible records were sparse, especially from developing countries, consequently suggesting different biodiversity patterns from checklist data. Global analyses revealed hotspots of species richness, together generating a rare bimodal latitudinal richness gradient. Going forward, improving our knowledge of bee distribution, especially at finer scales, will become increasingly central to conservation efforts.